Ride with Ed Shepp in his tampon gondola down the mucus brainwash of tomorrow.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Some Blips for the Beepners

Here are some blips for you:

That movie that's out/coming out now called Crash--it's not the same story as the Cronenberg film of the same name (and font). It's a shame, cux Sandra Bullock is in this new film, and if it were the same Crash, then finally there would be a Sandra Bullock film worth seeing. Alas, it is not to be...

Did anyone see that episode of The Apprentice where the 'prize' was to have a meal with George and Carolyn? What did you think of that prize? At first I thought it was pretty lame, cux G&C aren't exactly celebrities, you know? Not like Anna Kournikova or the Mentos commercials kids. But then I was like wait a minnut--to the people who follow this show, they kinda are celebrities. So then it became sorta cool. And I guess if you really want to win the show, maybe it would help you to know them better. But probably not. So my verdict went from lame to unlame-but-not-like-way-cool-or-anything. Then I saw the clip, and it was back to lame. Actually back to waaaay-lame. Cux in the clips they showed of the breakfast, after the introductions, the conversation went something like this (paraphrased): Carolyn: "There are 2 Georges in my life, George and my husband George, who I call 'My George.'" George: "Her husband's a great guy." Carolyn: "I'd like to think so." And there was a clip about her saying she has 2 kids and what not.

Mind you--those were the clips they showed from the meal. That means those were likely the MOST INTERESTING MOMENTS. LAME!!!! You'd think they'd have something more interesting to talk about than their demographics and the like. And 'My George'??? This woman is paid HOW MUCH and she can't come up with something the teeniest bit more original or evocative than 'My George'?? I reiterate: ?!?!??!!!?!??! What about Beefcake Boombox George of the Jungle? Glittery Groovzy Glamtasticplastic George? George of the Gorge? 'My George'? Ugh. That was a bum 'prize' if there ever was one. I would rather hear her talk about hair or bulimia. Actually, there's one thing that I really want her to do: I really want Carolyn Kepcher to use the phrase Hellz yeah! or the word beeyotch on an episode. It would really give the show that dash of glam that it's lacking, especially given the charisma-bereft cast of this season.

Lately I'm alls about that mashup of Ray of Light with Eleanor Rigby. If you like that kind of thing, you should download it--it's called Eleanor Ciccone. I know someone who doesn't like it; I was saying to him that I don't usually like mashups where they just put one song into another, and he was like, Totally! But I think he meant something thematically (and I think it's why he doesn't like Eleanor Ciccone), but I just meant that I hate when people mix a full song into another, as opposed to, say, putting the vocal line into the music of another (eg. Eleanor Ciccone, Oops! The Genie Is Out of the Bottle). At any rate, I'm all about this song. Especially because I think there had to be some key adjustment going on there, cux Ray of Light doesn't seem like it's in an all-minor key, but I wouldn't dare say for sure. Anyone out there know? I feel like the jacking around with the key makes the mashup cooler than if that wasn't necessary.

Speaking of sounds & keys and all that gwazbatazzle, I've recently had the opportunity to play around with a pitch shifter that allows you to check whether you want to shift the formants of a sound while shifting the pitch. This is exciting for me, cux I'm alls about the piatch shifting, as you know if you've heard much of my stuff. With regular pitch shifting, you automatically shift the formants in the original sound, which gives it that 'sped up/slowed down' quality (I don't understand the actual meaning of the word formant, but I understand the concept as it relates to shifting pitches, sort of). But there are shifters which allow you to control, to a greater or lesser degree, the shifting of the formants in the sound. And I've always wanted to try that. So using this piatch shifter is really cool. I've learned that when you shift the pitch down, it pretty much always sounds really effected, even with 'Preserve Formants' checked; but pitching up is a different story. You can pitch up like 9 semitones without things sounding totally bass-ackwards. An interesting thing: I thought that pitching up while preserving formants would make a man sound like a woman, which doesn't happen, unless you're putting on a female voice. In fact pitching way up like that actually makes you sound like a preteen, which is really interesting. Going way, way up makes you sound like some kind of talking violin. The best part is that pitching around while preserving the formants does really, really interesting things to the timbre of a voice: you can sound like a totally different person and still sound human. So I'm having lots of fun wit dat.

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About Me

Mount Dora's most perfect (s)export: A sainted sciconoslastic beepster, born from the freak Florida snow, tempered through 10,000 perfumes and electrosplash soundscapes, who creates magic in his dazzle collider in a pumpkin-shaped igloo somewhere in the vicinity of Norwegenmark (Trailer Park)